


Reconstruction

by Missy



Category: Laverne & Shirley (TV)
Genre: Angst, Jealousy, Multi, POV Third Person, Pining, Polyamory, Polyamory Negotiations, Recovery, Romance, Sequel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-15
Updated: 2020-05-11
Packaged: 2021-03-01 23:08:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,651
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23665153
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Missy/pseuds/Missy
Summary: A sequel to Amythis' "Disaster Management."As Laverne begins to tell the other people in her life about what happened on the aircraft carrier, Lenny yearns for her to tell him those three words he's been longing to hear, while Squiggy tries to figure out where he belongs in his lover's life.
Relationships: Laverne DeFazio/Lenny Kosnowski, Laverne DeFazio/Lenny Kosnowski/Andrew "Squiggy" Squiggman, Lenny Kosnowski/Andrew "Squiggy" Squiggman, One-sided Carmine Ragusa/Laverne DeFazio
Comments: 24
Kudos: 4





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [amythis](https://archiveofourown.org/users/amythis/gifts).



> You can read amythis' Disaster Management here: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23255932

Lenny Kosnowski let out a low, soft huffing sound as the bunk beds slipped back into place. He took a one long look around the new apartment as he climbed onto the top bunk with a grunt and deposited himself there, still in the trousers and shirt he’d been wearing when he came home Friday. He was still sticky from Laverne, from the honey and maple syrup and Bosco they’d doused her with and he knew he needed a shower, but right now he didn’t want to do anything but try to think.

His tired mind whirled around the events of the last twenty four hours like a couple of bananas in a blender. He didn’t know what to feel, honestly. He was elated that he had Laverne, that she had accepted him – including his situation with his friends-with-some-benefits-but-also-more. That she’d accepted Squiggy’s role in his life. That he’d made her feel better, and at least made her stop feeling guilty about being taken advantage of by those sailors.

But he’d told the girl he loved her, and she’d…well, done the Laverne thing. The Laverne thing where she hugged and kissed him and told him she wanted him to a degree and – new wrinkle - tried to squeeze him to death with her pussy but not returned the declaration. 

And he needed the declaration. He knew it wasn’t fair to her, knew he was pushing things, that she was still dealing with what had happened to her on the aircraft carrier, but he was hungry. Hungrier than he’d ever thought he’d be after being with Laverne.

He wanted to be alone with her, like he’s been alone with Squiggy in the shower. Like Squiggy might want to be alone with her sometime in the future. And that was also selfish and probably would ruin their groovy free-love fest, but he didn’t care. He’d walked right through fire for her, and he needed to know she’d do the same for him.

But was it free love when you were crazy about the people you were fucking?

“Well,” Squiggy observed, weirdly quietly for him, “that seems to have happened.” He heard his lover’s head thud comfortably against the pillow and wondered how the heck to juggle his feelings too. Squiggy had always rooted for him to get together with Laverne, had lusted after her in periphery to Shirley –now here they were after banging the hell out of her twice. He knew that for Squiggy the whole situation was both easier and far harder than it was for him.

“Yeah. Probably gonna happen again, too,” Lenny observed. Maybe over lunch, or over dinner – sometime in the future. He couldn’t see Squiggy’s face from his position, and wondered what was in his eyes.

A cynical Squiggy laugh greeted his ears. “For you and Laverne? Yeah. For you and me? Any time you want me. Me and Laverne? Maybe. I’ll have conjugular visits with her pussy. The three of us?” he shrugged. “She’s a hot number, and I care about her a lot, and I think she liked balling me, but you’re a classic combination. Like cashews and bubblegum. I don’t wanna get in the way if you think I’m in the way.”

That was, Lenny knew, bs, mostly because Squiggy was always there and in the way and had been sure to involve himself, which was why Lenny loved him so much. He would’ve been too petrified to do half of what he’d done with Laverne yesterday without Squiggy there, being his dirty-minded guiding voice. 

And yet.

And yet…

“You ain’t mad, are you?” Lenny doubted it, but he needed to hear it and hated the pleading tone he was using. They’d talked about this a little in the shower but he still felt perpetually afraid that Squiggy would be angry at him for exposing everything.

“No, Leonard,” Squiggy said. “I’m too tired to be mad at nothing.”

There were, Lenny realized suddenly, three simple truths to his life: Lenny loved Squiggy with all of his heart and couldn’t picture his life without him. But he wasn’t really _in_ love with him, just like Squiggy wasn’t really in love with Laverne and vice-versa. It was Laverne Lenny was in love with, but she might not love him back. She might like fucking him, but he knew enough about life now to know the difference between sex and love. And Lenny also couldn’t envision a world where he wasn’t married to Laverne, where they wouldn’t have kids someday. He _ached_ for her. How could Squiggy handle that? Where could Lenny and Laverne even get married? How did Squiggy fit in? How could they raise kids without all of this getting in the way? Would they get made fun of, just like Lenny had been?

How did this stuff work, damn it? All of the people he’d met on the road who ran around half naked in communes all day seemed to have it easier. How could the three of them live together in the harmony and peace Lenny craved so much when he had no idea what the future was going to hold? 

There were, he realized, more practical things to take care of. “I’ve gotta go take a shower. My everything’s stuck to my everything else.” He hopped down off the bunk and bent to peck Squiggy on the lips. The kiss was received warmly, almost thoughtfully. “Wanna split it?”

Squiggy shook his head. “Gonna wallow in this a little bit, like a pig in suds.”

Fear filled Lenny again. “You know I love you, don’t you?”

Squiggy gave Lenny a crooked grin and a quick nod, but the smile didn’t reach his eyes. “Yeah.” 

With that, Lenny headed to the shower. By the time his long hair felt soft and manageable instead of like a chunk of stiff cardboard again, he was whistling.

*** 

“Carmine?” Laverne snapped her fingers in front of his face with desperation, but he couldn’t get his features to twitch, not even an inch, as he tried to absorb what she’d told him.

“Laverne,” he said calmly, “this is the part of the joke where you’re supposed to start laughing.”

“Carmine, I ain’t joking.”

Oh, she wasn’t? The hysterical burst of laughter that came from Carmine’s lips probably wasn’t helping anything then, and might even get his lights punched out. He knew how hard Laverne could hit when she was mad and he was glad that at least she didn’t have any apple juice to pour down his pants this time.

“Gimmie a minute,” he begged, and rubbed a hand over his face. 

Moments before he’d been pumping her for career advice and she’d been her honest, wonderful self. She’d galvanized his choice to head to New York and try Broadway. _If one of them was going to make it, it should be you,_ she’d said then. Then with little-girl nervousness in her eyes, she’d sat down on what had once been Sonny’s couch and started spilling her guts to him.

Carmine got up from the same sofa and started running a tread into the ground. “Okay. You and Squiggy and Lenny. On the kitchen table. And last night.”

“Yeah,” she said, and she put her hands on her hips, daring him to have an opinion.

Carmine, even though he knew it might get him a sock in the jaw, had one anyway. “Laverne, this is crazy,” he said.

She gave him a sideways smile. “I know.” 

Then the next question blurted forth from his mouth. “Did you use…”

“Yeah,” she groaned, hiding her face. Embarrassed Laverne, a rare version. Carmine just stared at her for a minute.

“You do remember that two months ago those guys almost got you killed on death row because they were too afraid to have an honest talk with your father?”

“That was two months ago,” she said, her eyes evasive. He realized he was ruining something delicate, but Carmine couldn’t help himself.

“Oh yeah? Have they changed?”

“No, but…” She sighed. “Never mind. Just don’t tell no one about us. We’re trying to figure things out. And…that’s my good news.”

Carmine’s shoulders slumped. He sat down and listened to her. “So what’s the bad news?”

She delivered it to him while pacing back and forth across his apartment floor. 

He responded by punching a hole through the wall.

Laverne gasped, and then got on her knees to check his fist. “You ain’t helping me by hurting yourself.”

“Better than getting up, finding them and killing ‘em.” 

“That also won’t help no one. You don’t wanna go to jail, Carmine, believe me, I know.” She blew on his knuckles, fanned them. “You got any Bactine?”

“I can handle it,” Carmine said. Then he took her hands in his bleeding ones. “Laverne, are you sure you’re okay?”

She nodded. “Basically, yeah. Physically I’m fine.”

“But?”

“Mentally I’ll mostly get there.”

“If you need me to do anything…” he began.

She nodded. “I’ll be okay,” she said. “You take care of you now.”

“I…all right.” She let go of his hand and stood up.

“I have to go talk to my pop – and then I have to call Shirl.” He winced.

“You shouldn’t be alone for that.”

“I’ll ask the boys to be there, if I need them.” That old DeFazio pride colored her voice. He smiled at that tone. It was the real her coming back out again.

“If you need somebody…” 

“I know. You’re right upstairs.” She quickly moved toward him and pecked his cheek. “Thanks, Carmine. It means a lot.”

He grinned at her. “Hey. Whatt’re friends for?”  
Hearing that this hadn’t changed anything for him seemed to take some kind of weight off of her. She left his apartment grinning.

Carmine sat back on the sofa and sighed. He was going to have to dig up some plaster and paint and get to work before packing up.

But, at the moment, he felt one surprising new emotion dripping through his veins.

Jealousy for Lenny and Squiggy.


	2. Chapter 2

Lenny rummaged around Laverne’s kitchen, trying to figure out how to paste together the leftovers she had lying around into something that looked like a decent dinner. Tuna fish, soup, noodles, canned mushrooms, canned peas. Yeah, he could put this together, let it go for forty five minutes in an oven and it’d make a casserole, one she probably could keep down. 

And people called him dumb.

He slopped the dinner together, draining this, adding that, squinting at the package directions. He wanted this to be good. They’d probably be having dinner alone, after having lunch with Squiggy. His best friend had reacted noncommittally to the idea of coming in for dinner after their agreed-upon shared lunch. Either he’d picked up on the fact that Lenny needed alone time with Laverne, or he was doing what he always did when he thought too much –drink.

Lenny hoped it wasn’t the latter. They didn’t have much booze in the apartment, anyway, and the majority of it was Shotz, and they both knew how much of that stuff it took to get them wasted. In any event, he refused to feel guilty about it as he shoved the casserole into the refrigerator. 

Well. Mostly. 

He neatened the apartment up a little for her while he waited. Cleaning – when he did it, which was rarely – always made his mind feel fresh and new, like he was doing something important. 

After he scrubbed her kitchen table for the third time, he wondered what kind of guy he was turning into. Squiggy would make fun of him, if he could see this going down, even though he was the one who had sent Laverne’s tablecloth down to the laundry room. 

But part of him wondered if Laverne’s kitchen table would always smell like them, smell like her and maple syrup…

Lenny grumbled and tried to adjust himself. Today was about his heart, not his dick.

** 

Laverne nervously stared at her knees. The painful words she’d spoken to her father echoed in her mind.

_Auctioned off…everyone watched…_

All of the dirt and shame she’d sloughed off didn’t fall back on her, but she hated looking small in front of her father, hated looking vulnerable. She was the child he’d wanted, but who’d been born the wrong sex – and Laverne had tried to compensate her whole life, trying to be a good girl and a smart businessman like a son. Climbing trees and punching out boys. Defending those smaller and weaker than her. The one who’d give him an Italian grandson. 

Her father dusted his hand against his apron. “Did you think I was gonna be mad at you?” Frank asked her quietly.

Laverne dashed away her tears. “No…I dunno.” He’d called her “dopey” for worse. “Yeah,” she stuttered out softly. Her eyes were watery, and her nose running. At the very least, she expected him to rant at her about being the smartest stupid person he knew.

He swept her up in a crushing bear hug. “Never. Never mad at you for something like this.” 

For a long time he held her and she cried – all of the tears of fear and self-loathing she’d held in at the convent, and in front of the boys. With her Pop she could be the little girl, the lost one, the one he raised. 

“I am mad at the _morone_ sailors who did this to you!” Frank growled. “I’m gonna rip ‘em into little pieces!”

“You can’t,” she said. “I dunno where they are. I don’t wanna know where they are.” She sniffled. “I dunno, Pop. I’m sorry.”

“You ain’t got nothing to be sorry for.”

She gave him a sideways smile. “Someone I know said that to me last night.” She didn’t want to explain to her father about Lenny – at the very least she was going to have to explain Lenny at some point – but she did want to use his words. 

“Whoever said that to you was a smart cookie,” Frank observed.

Laverne just nodded her head. 

“Would you like something to drink, huh? Some Pepsi? Maybe I can get you a bowl of soup?”

Laverne knew all too well what Cowboy Bills’ soup tasted like. “God no..uh, I mean not tonight, Pop. Just what I ordered for the boys and me. I’m gonna have lunch with them before they move back to their place.”

“Okay,” he said. “You sure you’re gonna be all right?”

Laverne nodded. “Yeah. I’m gonna be fine.”

She promised herself that she would, when she left her father there, fussing over his customers and yelling at the waitstaff. 

***

Lenny cringed when Laverne came through the door with her paper sack of Cowboy Bills. He’d been holding the casserole dish and grabbed the wrong part of it with his bare hand at the sudden surprise. The mess managed to stay in the pan, but he cursed under his breath and dropped the dish to the counter.

Laverne made it across the room in three bounds and was examining his hand in two seconds. He heard her muttering something about men and their hands before she blew on his burn, fanning it. This was something she would have done for him gladly in Milwaukee. The nostalgia kind of made him a little bit misty.

“Where’s Squig?” she asked.

Exactly the words he didn’t want to hear from her. They cleared his throat. “Next door,” Lenny said. “He’s settling in his moths.” Which was what he’d said when Lenny had popped in and offered him the leftover pasta noodles from the bottom of the box. Squiggy had taken them, chewed them, but kept watching the moths. 

“Aww great,” she said. “I got him his stuff for nothing.”

“Nah,” Lenny said. “He’ll eat it later.” Lenny took the bags from her and sat them on the table. Then he plunged his hands into the pockets of his bell bottoms. “Uh,” he said, “how did it go with your Pop?”

“Fine,” Laverne said, “It went okay with Carmine too. He knows. Carmine, not my Pop.”

“Oh,” Lenny said, envisioning the burly ex-boxer bearing down on him, fists balled up. 

“It’s OK,” Laverne told him. “I said he don’t have the right to be mad. And if he is, I’ll punch him for you.”

He smiled. “Thanks.”

Silence. “You ain’t here just for the food, are you?” she asked. He nodded. “Okay. So say it.”

Lenny shook his head and gripped the edge of the table. “I can’t say it,” he said. He moved to the wall and turned to the corner, hiding his face from her.

“Len…” As always, she seemed to know when he was in pain. He felt her hand spread out along his back, but that just made this harder.

“Are you still sorting?” he asked. 

“Huh?” she blurted out.

“Sorting it. How you feel?” 

She nodded, looking embarrassed. “It ain’t easy, you know that.”

But the words charged headlong out of his mouth. “Laverne, do you love me?” The words plunked from his lips like a rock crashing down into the belly of a well. They sounded like the half-finished sequel to “I Love Laverne” (Should he be writing her a song now? Would anyone else listen to a song about him eating out a girl?)

He caught her eyes as he whirled around. She stared at him, her brow wrinkling in confusion at the words. Maybe she really did love him; he thought so, from the way she said his name. “Lenny!” 

“I know…maybe you didn’t last night. If you did, you would’ve said it back. And I know I’m going hasty pudding here, but I was pouring my guts into your crotch this morning…”

“…Disgusting but true,” Laverne said.

“…And I know it’s all wrong. I know it’s too soon after Mike, and I know we have to figure out where Squiggy fits in. But I love you so much. I’m crazy about you, and I always will be.” His thumbs found their way into the pockets of his pants. He started pacing. “But if you don’t love me back, I can’t do this anymore.”

They both froze perfectly still and stared one another down, like two cowboys in a quick draw contest. Normally he’d be the one to back off, to stop the fight before it was too late, but he couldn’t. 

He expected her to punch him. Or call him a big dope. Or slap him for bringing up Mike, just like she’d slapped him for suggesting to her that she hated her mother.

And he’d known that was a bad move, the second he’d mentioned Mike. It didn’t take him a lot of imagining to conjure up what Laverne was feeling. What she’d known, thinking of Mike’s head getting crushed in by a keilig light. It was bad enough for Lenny, having to drive Laverne to the County Medical Examiner’s office in the ice cream truck. Her tears. Holding her up at the funeral. All of that, and she’d just hugged him and told him he was sweet.

“Len,” she said softly, “you know I love you.”

He shook his head. “As a friend, right?”

“I didn’t say that…”

“And you love to fuck me,” she gasped when he said the words, something he would normally have found adorable. “But fucking ain’t love.” Though, Lenny also knew, what he and Squiggy had done for her was an act of love, in its own way – something to help her heal, something to make her realize it was okay to be her and it didn’t make her dirty or unlovable. “I can wait for you for a really long time,” he said. “As long as you need, to get over Mike. But not always. I got pride too. I got dignity. And I don’t wanna be alone with all the junk in my heart anymore with no one to give it to.”

She sat bonelessly down on the sofa. “Geez, Len. I didn’t think of how you were doing. I’m sorry I didn’t ask.”

“Well, that’s ‘cause me and Squig wanted you to have fun. You’ve been through a lot of stuff that I don’t even really understand. But I still got feelings, fruity as it sounds. I don’t want you to pass me back and forth between you like I’m a joint or something.”

She nodded. “I do.”

“What? Wanna smoke me like a joint?” That sounded pretty scary, actually.

“No,” she said. “I love you. More than as a friend. Not just because of this. But I don’t know what that means right now. I don’t know who I’m gonna be when I wake up tomorrow. I know you both reminded me of who I am and that there ain’t no shame in it. But you…there’s something different with you. Special.”

“Oh,” Lenny said. “We got to figure out what it does,” he said, taking both of her little hands in his big paws. “I want to know who we are without Squig there, and Squig might want to know who you are without me there. That’s normal for what we got. It ain’t just me being alone with him to go sneak off and give each other handjobs.” 

She gave him a sideways smile. “How’re you so smart about this, huh?”

“I’m not,” he admitted, flushing. “I’m just saying what’s in my heart.”

“D’you know?” she asked. “That if I had to pick right now, I’d pick you?”

“Yeah. But…but people don’t pick me first in the end,” Lenny said. It sounded childish coming out of his mouth, but it was also achingly true. “Not even my own mom. Even Squig wouldn’t marry me if he could – not that I’d marry him.” But Lenny wanted to be married. He wanted to know that someone out there wanted to keep him, always, and not just as a step stool or a prop. “If you get more time, you’ll probably pick Squig. That’s okay, I mean, who’d pick a loser like me when you had the chance to…”

“I’d pick you first,” she said, firmly, without giving him the chance to be equivocal. And then she put her arms around him.

That was what broke him a little bit. Standing alone in the middle of her living room, he held her against him and felt her heart beating away against his ribcage. Oh. This was what being loved felt like. He’d though the felt it the first time he’d kissed her, and when she told him he was wonderful. And when Karen had given him her necklace and he’d dreamed…but never mind. This was better than a dream.

He kissed the top of Laverne’s head. 

“Len. I gotta tell Shirley,” she said in a tiny voice.

“Oh,” Lenny said quietly. 

Laverne sat down quietly. “What if she hates me?”

He shook his head. “Shirl, hate you? You been best friends since I’ve been best friends with Squig.” 

“But it’s _Shirley,_ ” she said.

“So?” Lenny asked. “Laverne, Shirley’s the kinda gal who’ll love you no matter what. And if she don’t, well, me and Squig will be there.”

She gave him a sideways smile. “Thanks, Len.” Finally, she let him go, and it felt like she’d carved a hole in his chest. She patted it. “Wanna go get Squiggy? We’ll have lunch.”

“That’s not necessity,” Squiggy said, his voice coming from the doggy door leading back to their shared apartment. He crawled into the room, then walked over and gave them both a too-tight bear hug. “I knew you crazy kids would figure it out,” he said, then let go of them both, knocking Lenny into Laverne as Squiggy plopped down at the kitchen table. Lenny had no idea how much Squiggy had eavesdropped on, but whatever he’d heard hadn’t been enough to make him mad.

He looked at them both and gestured at the empty chairs before them. Then he grabbed his meal out of the paper bag, opened the foam interior, and began to eat his pulled pork sandwich, slopping it all over his black tee-shirt.

Lenny sat down between his two lovers with a sigh and dug into his Bronco Burger, as Laverne sat comfortably at the head of the table and watched them both. It felt right and comfortable. That was all Lenny knew, and, he decided, all he needed to know.

*** 

Carmine made sure to knock his special knock strongly, and twice, on Laverne’s front door before trying to push it open. He didn’t want to accidentally interrupt something, or worse, see things that would haunt him during the very long bus ride up to New York.

After a minute, Laverne opened it. She was smiling, her cheeks rosy – wearing a white blouse tied up at the waist and her red shorts, her bare toes painted bright red, her red hair back in a ponytail. “Hey, Carmine.”

“Hey,” he said, shoving his hands into the pockets of his jeans. “I stopped in to say goodbye.” He gestured at the suitcase sitting by his foot.

Her expression was slightly crestfallen. “Already?”

“Last bus to New York leaves at eight,” he said. “I’ve got an audition lined up for six Tuesday. It’s gonna take that long to get across the country.”

Laverne launched herself at him and hugged him just once, hard. “I’m gonna miss you, Ragusa.” 

He thought back along the years, of their aborted affair back in Milwaukee, of how hard she had worked to protect Shirley from his flippancy, his inability to commit. She was, in the end, still the little sister he didn’t have. “Gonna miss you too,” he said quietly.

“Hey, we’re in the room here!” Squiggy protested from the couch, the menace in his voice slight but extent. The fact that he wasn’t a threat to their relationship seemed beyond the point to Squiggy – he was being territorial.

“Stop it,” Laverne said, and he rolled his eyes. Carmine saw the shorter man put a pot of bright red glaze on the coffee table, and realized he’d been painting Laverne’s toenails for her.

“You sure you wanna be left alone with those clowns?” Carmine asked.

“Yeah,” Laverne said. She looked over her shoulder and saw Lenny watching them both. “Yeah, I do,” she repeated.

“Don’t pay no attention to him. He’s being jealous,” Lenny told Carmine, standing up and strolling across the room. He wrapped an arm around Laverne’s waist, but gave Carmine a hearty handshake. “Good luck,” Then, quietly, in a tone he apparently hoped Laverne wouldn’t hear, “I’ll take good care of her,” he vowed. And Carmine – who knew how long Lenny had been running after Laverne, how much he truly loved her – nodded in affirmation to that statement.

“Thanks, Lenny,” he said. 

“I could take care of both of you with my little hands tied behind my back. Hey, Carmine, can you do me one more favor?” Laverne asked him, looping her arm around Lenny’s back.

“What?”

“I’m gonna call Shirl. Would you mind sticking around for a little bit?”

He nodded. Well, he did kind of owe Laverne. 

Laverne took a deep breath and walked back into the living room. She picked up the phone and set it against the end table. As she dialed, Lenny sat beside her, his hand drifting into her lap, eventually holding her free hand. Squiggy hovered nearby, his fingertips skirting nervously close to her shoulder as she pulled the receiver close to her ear. Carmine watched it all. He had no idea what he was useful for, but maybe she’d need a friend, now that she had two men in her life.

Whatever happened next, they’d all be there to help her pick up the pieces and put them together again.

“Hey, Shirl,” Laverne said into the receiver.


End file.
